


(don't) throw in the towel

by oldeguard (anthonydarling)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Cooking, Domestic, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Slice of Life, i didn't proofread this, i wrote them as yusuf and nicolo bc i like those names okay, it was made with lots of love, it's 4 in the AM, please take it, this is so silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26371990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthonydarling/pseuds/oldeguard
Summary: “My love is a lot to ask for,” Nicolo said. Yusuf scoffed.“Asking for your love is to ask you to breathe. You hold more love in your little finger than most people will feel in their entire lives, even if they were as long as ours.”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & The Rest of the Old Guard
Comments: 36
Kudos: 299





	(don't) throw in the towel

**Author's Note:**

> this was partially inspired by a prompt that said something along the lines of "write a discussion between a character who only speaks in long sentences and a character who barely says more than a word at a time"

  
Nile had asked Andy, once, if Nicolo and Yusuf ever got into fights. Andy had scoffed at the thought.

“They spent the first five years of their immortality murdering one another. I’ve never seen a couple that’s so hell-bent on talking through their issues.”

Apparently, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have mock fights. Nile had been curled up on the edge of the couch with a mug of tea and a movie on and they had been moving quietly around the kitchen when they switched out of the medieval Genoese-Arabic hybrid language that only they spoke, to English in the middle of a discussion. Nile turned around to get a read on the situation. Nicolo was at the stove, and Yusuf was, well, it really just looked like he was loitering in there. 

Nile remembered, with only a small pang of homesickness, that her mom would always let her and her brother hang around the kitchen while she worked. She liked to teach them how to cook- it was a passion of hers and always had been- and Nile had been pretty good at it, but not as good as her mom had been, and certainly not as good as Nicolo was. She doubted that there’s anyone in the world that’s a better chef than Nicolo. No one else has had as much practice. 

And no one had had nine hundred years to perfect the art of mock-fighting with their lover. Yusuf was on a roll tonight.

“And you left your towel on the bed again! Nicolo, my love, we have been living with one another for over eight hundred years and I ask so little of you, there are so few things that I ask of you other than your love and your patience, but I _will_ find a way to undermine that saintly patience of yours if that’s what it takes to make you hang up your damn towel.”

Yusuf waved a hand through the air as he spoke, and Nile wondered if he was aware that he was holding a kitchen knife. Nicolo was, judging by the way he raised his eyebrows and leaned away from him a little. He made no move to stop him, though. A poorly-concealed smile pulled at his lips.

“My love is a lot to ask for,” Nicolo said. Yusuf scoffed. 

“Asking for your love is to ask you to breathe. You hold more love in your little finger than most people will feel in their entire lives, even if they were as long as ours.” He began to chop up the tomatoes that Nicolo had passed him in the middle of his sentence. Nicolo didn’t seem at all fazed by Yusuf’s declaration, and Yusuf didn’t look up to see if he had reacted or not. _“But,”_ Yusuf continued, and Andy put her face in her hands with a low groan, “you are deflecting. I have asked you hundreds of times, Nicolo, to do anything with your towel other than toss it on the bed or floor to let it dampen what it touches and grow mildew. And you never listen.” 

“Mildew,” Nicolo critiqued, simply, as he stirred one of the pots. He had to fight back his smile when Yusuf set down the knife with a sharp clack and jabbed a finger at him. 

_“Mildew,”_ he said. His eyes sparkled with a humor that didn’t match his serious tone. “It will grow on our bed and our carpet and continue to grow when we leave this safehouse and when we return to use it in five years it will have been declared a public health hazard because of the mold it will have.” He handed Nicolo the cutting board and diced tomatoes, and Nicolo hummed his thanks. “You will have put people in danger. They will have to bring in specialists to clear it away. You’ve seen those ridiculous outfits, the ones with the gas masks, the, the...” he snapped his fingers and looked to the floor, thinking. 

Nicolo looked at him with a single-minded focus as he processed what he had said and searched his memory, and then, “Hazmat.” 

Yusuf clapped his hands together. “Hazmat suits! They will come in in Hazmat suits, which seem to be awfully uncomfortable, just because you, five years prior, had left your soaking wet towel on the carpeted floor. All of that inconvenience because of your laziness.” 

Nicolo stepped back to open the oven door and check the food inside, then hummed and closed it again. He leaned over the stove to adjust the timer and temperature, and then he brushed past Yusuf as he gathered the plates that he no longer needed. 

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Yusuf half-teased. “Where has that sharp wit of yours gone?” 

Nicolo brushed past him again. His hand lingered against the small of Yusuf’s back for a moment. “My wit will never be as sharp as yours,” he said, easily, like it was a fact. 

“Nonsense,” Yusuf said, and Nicolo smiled to himself. “You sell yourself short. Your mind is unlike any other I have ever seen. You-” he paused, then took a step back with a mock-offended gasp. “You’ve been provoking me! You’ve made me carry this entire conversation, I’ve told you my grievances and you have been provoking me, manipulating me into ranting, for your own entertainment!” He clutched at his chest and leaned against the counter, his voice raising into a dramatic, even more Shakespearean rhythm. “Nicolo, my Nicolo, I have given you my mind, my body, my heart, and you mock me? Nine hundred years-”

“It’s a towel,” Booker muttered, and typed something with a little more force than necessary. Andy was reading a book, like she had somehow blocked out their increasingly ridiculous discussion. Nile has watched telenovas that were less riveting than this.

“Yusuf,” Nicolo said, and he stopped mid-sentence to let him speak. Nicolo’s grin widened. “Has it occurred to you that perhaps I leave the towel out on purpose?”

_“Nicolo di Genova-”_


End file.
